Alamogordo to host 12th annual Gus Macker tournament

200 teams and around 5,000 spectators are expected for this year's tourney

The 12th annual Gus Macker 3-on-3 basketball tournament might be a month away, however Alamogordo Special Events Manager Jason Richards is excited to host the tournament. Alamogordo will be the first stop for the Gus Macker tour of New Mexico.

The tournament will be held May 17 and 18. Mail-in entries are due by April 25 while online registration closes April 28 on http://macker.com. The entry fee is $144 per four person team.

Las Cruces is normally the first city in New Mexico to host the tournament, however the event's date was pushed back to June.

"The first day is Armed Forces Day and since Holloman has been a big community partner with Alamogordo, they partner with the Macker event, so that it will draw more people," said Richards. "And also bring a little bit more community pride, not only to the event but to the military, that has been a great asset to this community, ever since we've been around."

"The tourism part of it, since we are going to be the first, I know people are itching to come out and do these tournaments. Because there's one in Hobbs and Artesia and it's nice to be the first, because they seem to jump and skip from one to another. As it comes for tourism and lodging, that also is a big plus."

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The event coincided with Armed Forces Day last year and brought 5,000 spectators along with 200 basketball teams to Alamogordo, according to a press release from the City of Alamogordo.

Richards added,"This will be the first time in the state that we've been the first event to happen. Their tour actually starts around the beginning of May as they jump week to week. So I believe their first one is that weekend before and we're actually the second one on the Macker tour overall."

Every year the event brings a lot of optimism to the community.

"The typical number, like what I saw last year, is around 230-250 teams," said Richards. "So that's kind of the goal. If we get a little over that, we would have to add some more courts, but I wouldn't see that being a bad thing."

Every year the venues change from place to place.

"Due to the road construction that will be happening around Washington Park starting in May, we moved it to the Rheiner-Steinoff Complex parking lot. From what I understand, it's a large area, but it should be nice," said Richards. "The military is going to have a larger presence than they've had the past few years with military displays."

"It varies from year to year, but this year they got permission to actually have a larger presence and be able to bring more stuff, which should be on both ends, a larger venue than it has been for a while."

Richards hopes to draw more teams and spectators than the year before, "I think that there's a capacity that we can handle and I guess the ultimate goal would be to reach that capacity, I don't know if it would happen this year."

"They have different age brackets and they separate them into youth categories and then the adult categories," said Richards. "For the youth categories, the fouls are called by the volunteers and the adult teams call their own fouls."

The pre-established brackets for the junior division are 10 and under, 11-12, 13-14, 15-16 and 17-18. For the adult teams the male and female teams are split into separate divisions according to height, average age and experience.

The two adult divisions contain ages 19 and over while the other division is for 30 and over players. The older division is split in the following age groups, 30-34, 35-39 and 40 and over.

"Registration opened now and it ends at the end of April," said Richards. "Now typically they will extend it a little bit, but it depends on how many teams we have at that point. We just got some postcards in now, so we will be distributing the postcards out here shortly and they do all their national advertising on the Macker website."

"I would think that any place that has a Macker tournament, we would have a draw from them, like the Hobbs, Artesia and Roswell areas. Roswell from what I understand doesn't have one now. Las Cruces of course, since we're going to be the first and they typically were the first until this year."

The Flickinger Center will provide live music while local venders will provide food and entertainment during the two-day tournament.

"I'm very excited. I grab hold of those opportunities when I can and we were fortunate enough that Las Cruces had to push their's back to make us the first in the state, which is why I wanted to put that out there and let the community know. Hopefully it continues on like that."